Asian black-tailed godwits winter in Australia, Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia, and Papua New Guinea. The Southern Alps from Marlborough down to Southland. The birds began their northward migration in mid-March, typically completing the journey in two stages. on What does a godwit scientist do in lockdown? Ornithologists have known for a long time that godwits cover an enormous distance: from Alaska to New Zealand it’s about 12,000 kilometres. “When they’re in the breeding grounds, anything big and brown that moves, like a skua or bird of prey, they’re really nervous. For two wader species that arrive in Britain and Ireland in the autumn, the migration story is straightforward: Grey Plovers and Bar-tailed Godwits fly here from the northeast. This godwit has been seen regularly at the Tagus estuary over the years, in autumn and spring. Nature reserve: RSPB Boyton Marshes, Suffolk. The first was from ‘Cornelia’, a head-started chick released at the Nene Washes in 2018 (also learn more here). 1; Skagen et al. Ac­cording to legend, it even gave the first voyagers to Aotearoa from Polynesia the idea that there was something down south worth travelling towards: they kept seeing it hurtling past once a year, as if it had somewhere definite to go and wasn’t going to stop till it got there. Jean Rees-Lyons, Artistic Director of The Word Garden helped name some of the head-started birds of 2019 as part of ‘the ‘Origins Project’, remembering the Scottish Soldiers. Only the Arctic tern flies fur­ther, from Antarctica to the Arctic. Another one-year-old godwit head-started in 2019 has just been reported this week from Senegal, in Djoudj National Park near Debi. Beyond them are the pied oystercatchers, so they’ve both got dry feet, and then on the edge there are the godwits. Individual monitoring, Firth of Thames, 2004-2006 Photo: Phil Battley . The head-started godwit spotted at this site is Hope – head-started and released at WWT Welney in 2019. Thirty-eight years old now, he has been coming here since he was a boy. Pointing out dotterel footprints, he says: “I started moni­toring the birdlife on the estuary when I was at high school, so a lot of these birds I’ve been monitoring for 24 years straight. WWT Welney is where all the head-starting happens, thanks to WWT’s highly skilled and experienced aviculturalists: godwit eggs are incubated and chicks are reared in specialised pens before release at fledging age, to get them through their most vulnerable time of life. Conservationists and RSPB staff members Dr Jen Smart and husband Mark Smart had planned to cycle from the UK to the annual conference of the International Wader Study Group (IWSG), which was to be held in Germany this year. Omaha Beach, Normandy was one of the five designated beaches that were used during the D-Day landings on 6 June 1944 during the Second World War. The fact this godwit is spending another spring here suggests she has joined the Dutch breeding population of black-tailed godwits. It will be interesting to measure the impact our fencing has on wader nest success in the coming months. The godwits that breed at the Nene and Ouse Washes spend the non-breeding season at wetland sites in Spain, Portugal and West Africa. They arrive in New Biology Letters 2: 517-520 . It’s been an exciting couple of weeks on Project Godwit as we welcome the first of our headstarted birds back to the project sites. Driving back past McCormacks Bay, for instance, Crossland points out three artificial islands in a lagoon. “I’ve known him for more than 10 years. Pickles was released on 9 June at WWT Welney. Sky was head-started as a chick at WWT Welney Wetland Centre in June 2019 and released at the Nene Washes. Reporting a sighting can be done through the Project Godwit reporting page. Female black-tailed godwits tend to disperse further than the males, though most birds recruit close to the natal site. All of the Bar-tailed Godwits of Alaska, they stop at the Yellow Sea." He was one of the first head-started birds to be released as a chick at WWT Welney in June 2017 – therefore it was quite a surprise to the team at Project Godwit to discover this youngster on the other side of the country, at just one month old! In any case, he adds, no matter how smart the satellite technology, the battery aspect is always going to be problematic. If so, what effect will major climate change have on them? We also have a small, vulnerable breeding population, on a select few wet meadows and marshes. Then it gets cold real quick and they can’t survive there; they’ve got to get out of it. 1030. After spending winters in warmer areas like Australia and New Zealand, they migrate back to the Arctic for breeding. Black-tailed godwits are migratory, and birds from the limosa subspecies spend the non-breeding season in wetland sites in Spain, Portugal and West Africa. He’s really tame. It will be fascinating to see how many of our headstarted birds are amongst them. This is yet another godwit from the UK breeding population reported to have been using the Tagus estuary for many years – where the building of an international airport is proposed. This behaviour is common for juvenile godwits, whereby they often don’t return to the UK breeding grounds until the age of two years. Moving along, on a mild grey day punctuated by spitting rain, we park for a while on top of Balmoral Hill, which has a tremendous view of the Canterbury Plains to the west, stretching to the Southern Alps, and Pegasus Bay to the north. Rather than putting up with the cold during the winter, many birds migrate to warmer climates for several months each year. And today? (It’s the return journey that godwits fly non-stop. This female was observed breeding at the Nene Washes again this year. Hail, then, Limosa lapponica!—or, to give it its Maori name, kuaka! Hurricane spent last spring near Valencia, Spain, therefore this is the first time he’s been back in the UK since being released as a chick at RSPB Nene Washes in June 2018. Some stay for weeks before journeying south to West Africa, Spain and Portugal, demonstrating the importance of these coastal sites for migratory waders. Remi was seen last week back at the Nene Washes as is paired with an un-ringed wild male. First you log the moment of midday at a specific location, usually Greenwich. First, I analysed data from the eight geolocators that had been retrieved in previous years. She returned to the Ouse Washes in May and has been spotted a number of times since then, in June. The godwit to have been spotted here is Morgan, seen in July 2018 and again two years later recently in July. Andrew Crossland is walking the shores of that estuary­ or this airport—on a windy March day. Day 8 brought them back to the Fens, visiting the three project sites of Project Godwit where the lives of all the head-started birds begin. Head-started godwits are also breeding in the UK, pairing with ‘wild-reared’ adults as well as with other head-started birds. Many species migrate in order to take advantage of better food supplies in different environments at various times of the year. But suddenly I was in Chile, wearing shorts and freed from my PhD for the first time in months. Birds migrate to improve their chances of survival and reproductive success, and while temperature may influence migration, birds can su By linking you to one of the godwits, you will be able to follow your bird’s progress over the coming years, as they make a home in the Fens and head off each year on migration across Europe and Africa. He can tell you, too, that there are five species of cormorant here: the whole of Europe has only three. Nine headstarted birds have been seen so far back in the fens this season. It basically kills the invasive grasses, and most of the plants that like salt are native plants. They come and go from several estuaries throughout the country but the Avon/Heathcote has be­come particularly identified with them, perhaps because the people of Christchurch have taken them to their hearts. In order for migration to be worthwhile, the benefits must outweigh the risks – benefits coming in the form of improved survival and breeding success. If you see a godwit flying, it's easy to identify it. This study also indicated that nest survival was lowered because of an increase in nest predation. While avian migration timing is clearly influenced by both breeding and non-breeding geography, it is challenging to identify the relative and interdependent roles of endogenous programs, early-life experience, and carry-over effects in the development of adult annual schedules. After pairing with a wild-reared male, 2017 head-started female Earith bred at the RSPB Pilot Project site this season. The recent decline at the Nene Washes is therefore likely the result of lower reproductive success resulting in fewer birds recruiting at the Nene Washes. It’s the same with the plant people and other people around Christchurch, the council’s always been really good that way. Anyone who doesn’t have at least some degree of admiration for the feat of bird migration either isn’t aware of the challenges involved or must lack any sense of wonder and imagination. Even satellite telemetry, however, can’t tell us how high they fly. A new fence may not be the most exciting thing to read about, but then on-the-ground conservation isn’t glamorous. Bar-tailed Godwits are quite large waders, with females being bigger than males. While many of the project team are either still furloughed or working from home under house arrest, it’s been more challenging for the project this season than anyone could have predicted. It’s just that they do everything really well. As keen cyclists and wader conservationists, their aim was to promote responsible travel while raising funds for wader conservation. Mon 24th – Titchfield Haven NNR, Hampshire In terms of birdlife this estuary is probably monitored more closely than any other in New Zealand.”. Explains Crossland: “Of the, say, 70 birds that we caught about three years ago, more than 60 came back the following year and there’s probably about 50-odd here three or four years later, so there’s actually quite high survival.”. It was two-for-the-price-of-one for this godwit stop, as siblings Lady and Manea have both been seen here at Old Hall Marshes, spotted together in July 2017. Head-started female Earith, who features on the back of the Project Godwit cycling jersey, nests at this site and in three years has fledged six chicks. Jen and Mark will instead remain in the UK and cycle 600 miles in eight days from Somerset to Cambridgeshire between 23rd-30th August, following a route that links 11 nature reserves which have been visited by black-tailed godwit chicks raised and released by Project Godwit. Another puncture to fix before departing for the final day of Jen and Mark’s Funds for Waders cycling fundraising challenge. This factor provides an answer to the question, “How do animals know when to migrate?” “I count the legs and divide by two,” he says with a grin. This female godwit was head-started as a chick at WWT Welney Wetland Centre and released at RSPB Nene Washes in June 2019 (pictured below as a chick). If you’re visiting the site, please help us to keep the godwits safe by keeping the gate closed. The absence of flooding on the Ouse Washes in the spring was conducive for our breeding godwits, however predation of eggs and chicks is still a problem for these vulnerable ground-nesting birds. Why do godwits behave so differently, and how do these individual differences come about? Researchers then do their best to capture that same bird again; if they’re successful, they remove the logger and use the stored light-level data to establish the moment of sunrise, midday and sunset throughout the year. It was hard to say no. Most godwits begin breeding around the age of two and although some have been known to breed successfully at that age and even younger, more experienced adults tend to have greater breeding success. Black-tailed godwits use ‘staging areas’ (stop-over sites) on their migration route to rest and feed, in places such as the crucially important Tagus estuary in Portugal, which connects breeding sites across the northern hemisphere to wintering areas in Africa. As the name suggests, the white tail is barred with brown. But they tend to relax as the summer goes on.”. Two of the geolocators I examined had logged especially interesting migrations (during my PhD, I analysed more than 300 migrations by Dutch godwits – these two were immediately distinguishable from the pack!). Birds ringed by Project Godwit have a lime colour ring on the right leg stamped with the letter ‘E’ and can be reported to the team here. That’s not very uncommon. Remi is another female from our class of 2017 but, in contrast to our other headstarted birds, she has decided to set up home at the RSPB Nene Washes. Back on August 7 he counted 171 godwits that had wintered over, but internal movement brought a big drop to 64 on September 4. Bar-tailed Godwits from Alaska spend the winter in the Old World. “The permafrost melts, so all of the mosquitoes and other insects are in huge abundance; there are amazing food sup­plies for them. I was coming from winter, which was clear from my pale skin and a permanently smoky smell imparted by my woodstove. Structurally, they have a wing shape designed for fast, efficient long-distance flight. “In the centre of the roost are the variable oystercatchers; they’re the biggest ones. Why and how do they do it and which routes do they take? Read our privacy policy. • Godwits leave Alaska when it starts to cool off. We’ll keep you posted! “How do you not,” he replies, “given what they do?” It’s a sentiment with which most of us Kiwis clearly would agree. “These guys have just come from being Mum and Dad Godwit on a wee nest in the middle of the tundra, and anything on the horizon that looks wrong freaks them out. The intrepid duo will be raising money for Project Godwit and for IWSG, which gives out small grants each year to support wader projects around the world. First, the godwits follow the west Pacific Rim to the Yellow Sea, which lies between mainland China and the Korean peninsula. The oldest known black-tailed godwit on record is currently 23.6 years. “We designed these antennas so they’d be coming out on the plane of the bird and wouldn’t be sticking up, inducing wind drag.”. Waiting for the right moment to announce itself—a slight shift in the wind, perhaps. One-year-old female godwit ‘Sky’ was reported at a national nature reserve near Yves in Western France in September by Jérémy Dupuy. Even personally. 600 miles cycled in 8 days, visiting 11 nature reserves and over £6000 raised so far for wader conservation! They stop over in the Yellow Sea to feed, before heading to Alaska in May and June, where they stay for several months during the Northern Hemisphere summer. “The stilts are visual feeders, not probers, so the other two are probing but the stilts are picking stuff off the sur­face—little flies and crustaceans. Eggs and chicks of this ground-nesting wading bird are vulnerable to predators such as foxes and badgers, so the purpose of this fence is to keep ground predators out and protect breeding godwits, giving them a helping hand. But about 300 juveniles—you can tell them by their brown breasts; the adults ready for breeding have brick-red plumage—stay over for the winter, rather than risk the trip. They undertake the longest non-stop migrations of any bird, and to fuel this carry the greatest fat loads of any migratory bir… Fingers crossed Hope will be back at the project sites in the Fens next year. On September 15 there were 394. Take away the half of it. A few weeks later (at which point I happened to be in the forests of Maine, wearing smoky snowpants), I received a job offer to work for the RSPB as a Senior Research Assistant on Project Godwit to monitor the godwits nesting at the Nene Washes. This male breeds at the Nene Washes every spring and was spotted again this year. 2008, Senner 2010). I’ll keep you posted! Barker was released as a chick at WWT Welney in June 2019. We know from banded birds. Even Crossland can’t figure that one out. This godwit is a sea bird about 40cm in height. He’s been spotted on two occasions at Porte-en-Re, on the west coast of France. Conservationists and keen cyclists Jen and Mark Smart may have hung up their cycling helmets, emptied the panniers and given their leg muscles a well-deserved rest after they finished their Funds for Waders cycling fundraiser last week, but there’s still plenty to say about the black-tailed godwits that were behind this challenge. Estimating longitude (east/west) comes next and this relies on a centuries-old technique. The affable Battley, a senior lecturer in zoology in Massey’s Ecology Group, studies all kinds of shorebirds but for a while godwits were of particular interest to him: he was part of an international research project run by the US Geological Survey out of Alaska, a project which culminated last year in a fluke discovery that set the ornithological world alight and even made the general news headlines. Terns, shags, stilts, oystercatchers, all manner of shorebirds and waders, he knows them well. 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